That comment about academia is not universally true at all. Grad students frequently get first author status on papers they do the bulk of the work on. The typical abuse that is more commonplace is the inclusion of advisors as last authors on papers that they didn’t contribute to at all (other than writing the proposal that won the funding that supported it). That’s why journals began adopting a requirement that the contribution of each author be made clear in the paper (usually a section near the end).
